destructive Testing - new Tie Rod Installed - Photo 03

We noticed the TJ was pulling slightly as we drove it home after Desert Safari ’12. Inspection showed a mildly bent tie rod. Yep, it’s bent, and we only had a couple of days to drive the TJ to Moab for Easter Jeep Safari. We would have liked to upgrade the steering to Currie’s Currectlync or Parts Mike’s Handler Kit, but ran out of time. The quick fix involved a trip to the local steel shop for some chromoly steel tubing, straighten the bend, sleeve the stock tie rod, and rosette and fully weld both ends. Here is the upgraded unit ready to be bounced off rocks until we can upgrade the whole system. While under the Jeep we noticed that the driver-side upper control arm was also bent, as was the passenger-side axle control arm mount.